


Leap to Faith

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Background Dean/Castiel - Freeform, Coda, Episode: s11e17 Red Meat, Gen, Having Faith, Headspace, M/M, warning for reference to drug overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 14:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6474049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is thinking about solving this whole deal with Amara and Lucifer and just. Stopping. He thinks maybe he could finally be okay with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leap to Faith

“What’re we gonna do?” Dean finally asks when they’re thirty minutes out from the bunker. “When we get back.”

Sam knows Dean is asking the big question, the save-the-world question, not the what’s-your-plan-for-the-evening question. His muscles are aching, though, his stitches itching below the bandages, his head throbbing from the lack of sleep and the blood loss and the desperate physical exertion. He’s tired as all hell, so he answers as though Dean asked the latter.

“Personally,” Sam says, “I’m going to spend the next few days not doing a damn thing. I fucking earned that.”

Dean grins, turning from the road briefly to lightly slap the side of Sam’s leg. He says, “Damn right you did.”

And the thing is, in this moment, Sam actually believes it. He’s spent his whole life feeling like he’s never going to earn time off, like he can never quit this job because there will always be more people to save. Like the good he’s done will never outweigh the bad. Like he’ll never make up the deficit, so he has to keep on going until he dies because he’ll never earn a break.

For the first time, though, he’s finally starting to feel like maybe he’s already earned it. Maybe he’s done enough good that he has a whole backlog of lazy, self-indulgent days he’s earned in exchange for all the lives that he saved, all the people he helped not because he was obligated but because he wanted to. Maybe he’s taken care of the world for so long that he can finally stop, finally focus on taking care of himself without spending the whole damn time feeling guilty about it.

Sam is thinking about solving this whole deal with Amara and Lucifer and just. Stopping. He thinks maybe he could finally be okay with that.

He’s been thinking about it a lot, lately. He’s been planning it all out just like he’s been working on digitizing everything in the Men of Letters’ archives. He’s been filing away ideas for the life he could have -- the life he _wants_ to have -- in the mental card catalog he’s got going on. He’s been making mental notes like he’s planning his strategy for a skeptical witness, working out how he’s going to convince Dean to buy into something he doesn’t believe can exist.

But Sam believes. Sam is convinced they’re going to fix this and get _out._ He believes it not because he has to have something to believe in but because he’s choosing to believe in something he wants. Faith has never come naturally to him, not with his transient childhood, his life without any kind of foundation to build it on. No consistency, no church community, no mother whispering to him as she tucked him into bed, telling him angels were watching over him. He always got the impression it was something people should have, though, so he had forced himself. Had woken up every day and chosen faith until it felt like it was part of him and not part of the various people he was always pretending to be.

Sam has chosen to believe in a lot of things, over the years. He chose to believe in Dean and in his dad and in God and in the kindness of strangers, and now he’s choosing to believe in himself.

He’s getting better at it with each passing day, this skill he’s won after thirty years of practice.

Dean, though, doesn’t believe. Dean has always looked at Sam’s faith with a mixture of scorn and jealousy. He looks at it like something Sam has that he doesn’t; as something Sam was given rather than something he chooses. Something the absence of which makes Dean somehow less.

Sam doesn’t begrudge him this. He knows there are a lot of things he has had that Dean hasn’t. He knows there’s a reason Dean is a little more familiar with the pain of hunger, with the feel of a gun in his hand, with sleepless nights and old bruises and harsh words. He knows that there are a lot of things he only had because Dean gave them up for him. He understands the context of every last aspect of Dean better than anyone else in the world.

Cas could probably give Sam a run for his money, if Dean would let him get close enough.

Sam is determined to make sure Cas has time to get close enough. Sam wants that for Dean, wants him to have a person who might not fill all those little holes in his life, but can at least make him stop poking at them incessantly. Sam wants that for himself, too. He wants someone who will distract him from pulling at his duct tape and safety pins. He’s determined to make sure they have time -- all three of them -- to figure out how choose something better for themselves.

He knows he can’t say all that. He can’t ask Dean to tell him the truth about the past two days, let alone have _that_ conversation. Instead, he’ll have to sit in the same room as Dean and wait for him to get there. To take that first step on his own, that first move toward the eventual leap Sam is going to ask him to make.

Dean makes it easy, actually. He doesn’t yet believe in them the way Sam does. He doesn’t feel like he’s earned time off. Which is why, after they get back to the bunker and Sam collapses into bed, the next thing Sam is aware of is the sound of Dean knocking on his door the next morning. He pushes open the door with his hip and walks in with breakfast on a platter, oatmeal and whole grain wheat toast and fresh fruit cut into bite-sized pieces, a grin on his face and dark circles under his eyes.

“Thanks,” Sam says, sitting up slowly, in part so he doesn’t aggravate his healing wound and in part so he has time to think. They may have had the oatmeal and the bread sitting around in a cupboard somewhere, but they were out of milk when they left, and they definitely didn’t have any strawberries. He takes the pale, tired look Dean has about him, notices the way his smile moves only his mouth, breathes in the smell of stale coffee. He looks at the clock on his nightstand; he’s been out for nearly twelve hours. He’s willing to bet Dean hasn’t slept at all.

Dean probably wouldn’t admit it if he asked, though, so instead of trying to talk, Sam eats. He chews especially slowly so Dean has plenty of time to work up the courage to say what he needs to say. So that the empty plates won’t give him an excuse to leave.

Sam is done with the oatmeal and the toast and has been chewing the same apple slice for what feels like a full minute when Dean finally cops to what he did. Finally explains about the pills and Billie and another death added to a list that’s already way too long. Another offer for a trade no one should ever feel like they have to make.

“It was awful,” he admits, dragging a hand over his face, back through his hair. “I should-- Michelle shouldn’t have had to watch that.”

“No, she shouldn’t have,” Sam agrees. “But I’m glad she was there.” He wishes she hadn’t had to watch that, either. Sam knows better than most how hard it is to watch people die. But he’s glad that at least Dean had the presence of mind not to do that alone. To have Michelle there to pull him back from the ledge they’ve both spent way too long standing on. It’s not a lot. But he’ll take it for now.

Dean casts Sam a furtive glance, taking in his frown, his furrowed brow. He says, “You’re angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Sam says, because he isn’t. He understands that what Dean does, he does out of love. Out of fear, too -- fear that Sam and Cas are going to leave him behind, that they’ll both take the plunge before him and leave him with no more reason to keep his feet on solid ground. As if his own life isn’t reason enough. Sam knows the feeling. He’s decided to stop holding it against himself, so he’s not going to hold it against Dean, either. Sam says, “I’m just sad. Your life is worth more than that, Dean.”

Dean bristles at that. He says, “More than yours? Don’t--”

“No,” Sam says. “That’s not what I meant.” He’s careful to keep his voice low and calm and earnest, because if he seems angry, he knows Dean is going to go on the defensive. Dean is great at that, has been conditioned into it by a life under constant attack. It’s displays of honest affection that leave Dean defenseless, though, and if there’s anything Sam is good at, it’s being a little brother. He says, “Your life is worth _just as much_ as mine. You’re more than just a bargaining chip.”

Dean doesn’t argue, but he shrugs one shoulder halfheartedly, like he doesn’t believe it.

They’ll have to work on that.

“We’re going to get him back,” Sam says, with conviction, “and we’re not going to get ourselves killed in the process.”

Dean scoffs. He says, “You can’t possibly know that.”

“Sure I can,” Sam says. “C’mon, Dean. You, me, and Cas have a perfect record when it comes to saving the world. We’ve got eight years of evidence saying we can all survive this. We can do this. We’ll figure it out.”

Dean shifts where he’s sitting. He sighs. He says, sounding half desperate and half just exhausted, “Will you shut up and finish your damn breakfast?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says, “but after that, get some rest, all right?” Dean opens his mouth as if to protest, but Sam cuts him off. “C’mon, man, we earned this. We’ve saved the world enough times to know a couple days off isn’t going to make a difference.”

“You don’t--” Dean starts.

“You _died,_ ” Sam says, noting the way Dean winces. “Even Jesus got three days of rest after that.” They’ve been a pawn in heaven’s games enough times that he doesn’t even feel bad about the comparison.

Dean barks a laugh at that. “Fine,” he says, throwing his hands up in defeat. “Just a couple days, though.”

“Deal,” Sam says, smiling.

_Baby steps,_ he thinks.


End file.
